About the Film

Decade of Fire covers a shocking but untold piece of American urban history, when the South Bronx was on fire in the 1970s.

Left unprotected by the city government, nearly a quarter-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multiethnic neighborhood burned to the ground, reducing the community to rubble.

Buildings burned almost continuously from an estimated forty fires a day that destroyed 80% of area housing stock and displaced a quarter-million residents. Decade of Fire uses striking, never-before-seen archival and home movie footage, plus testimonials from retired FDNY firefighters and brass, as well as Bronx historians and community organizers, to reveal the real reasons for the devastation, showing what can happen when a community chooses to fight back and reclaim their neighborhood.

With the help of fellow survivors, Vivian Vázquez Irizarry, who grew up in the South Bronx, and other community leaders tell the story of how they banded together amidst the rubble and built a better future for their children.MORE

The Filmmakers

Vivian Vázquez Irizarry (Co-Director/Producer) has run educational, GEDcompletion and college access programsfor youth across New York City fordecades. She is the director of community-school partnerships at the New Settlement Community Campus inthe Bronx. A former member of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, she belongs to 52 People for Progress, a community organization that saved her childhood playground and revitalized the South Bronx for the last 35 years.

Gretchen Hildebran (Co-Director/Producer/Editor) is a documentary filmmakerand editor whose credits include Worth Saving (2004), which was presented in HBO’s Frame by Frameshowcase, and Out in the Heartland(2005), which explored anti-gaylegislation in Kentucky. A 2005 graduateof Stanford’s documentary program,Gretchen shot Ramona Diaz’s TheLearning (2011) and has edited for theHistory Channel, PBS and the UnitedNations Development Programme, aswell as independent documentaries. She also made a series of shortdocumentaries used to educatecommunities across the country aboutlife-saving interventions such as needleexchange and overdose prevention.

Julia Steele Allen (Producer/Impact Producer) is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and a community organizer from New York City. She worked for many years as a community organizer on educational justice campaigns in District 9 in the South Bronx. Since 2014 she has been touring her play, Mariposa & The Saint: From Solitary Confinement, A Play Through Letters, performing for judges, wardens, legislators and community members across ten states, as part of the growing movement to end solitary confinement in the nation’s prisons. She is the Co-Chair of CASA (Community Action for Safe Apartments) Solidarity Board, a Bronx tenant’s rights and housing justice organization.LESS

MUSIC
“I Never Listen to Them”
Written by Alex Guy
Published by Elizabeth Alexander Guy
Performed by Led to Sea from the album “The Beautiful Humming of Ms. Fortune”
under license from Elizabeth Alexander Guy

“Apache”
Written by Jeremiah Patrick Lordan
Published by Regent Music Corp. (BMI)
under license from Sunflower Entertainment
Performed by the Incredible Bongo Band from the album “Bongo Rock”
Courtesy of Mr. Bongo Records

“Projections”
Composed and performed by Stuart Roslyn
Published by KPM APM
under license from Associated Production Music LLC

“Rican Beach”
Written by Alynda Lee Segarra
Published by Mariposa Gang Publishing
under license from BMG Rights Management LLC
Performed by Hurray for the Riff Raff from the album “The Navigator”
Courtesy of ATO Records

“French Riviera” and “Going Nowhere"
Published by Jingle Punks
under license from Jingle Punks

Funding Provided by
Ford Foundation JustFilms
New York State Council on the Arts
Steve Amarante
BronxCare Health System
Bronx Council on the Arts
Elspeth Gilmore
Heidi Speigel
Ed Pickett
Lorraine Montenegro
Victor Hernandez
And others. A complete list available from PBS.

Original Series Funding Provided by
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Wyncote Foundation
The National Endowment for the Arts

DECADE OF FIRE is a co-production of Red Nut Films, LLC and Independent Televisions Service (ITVS) in association with Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) and Black Public Media (BPM), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

This program was produced by Red Nut Films, LLC which is solely responsible for its content.

This story is set in the Bronx, but has anything like this happened in the city or community you live in? Have you ever had to band together with others in your community to protect it? Do you remember when "the Bronx was burning"?

This story is set in the Bronx, but has anything like this happened in the city or community you live in? Have you ever had to band together with others in your community to protect it? Do you remember when "the Bronx was burning"?